Jolly Rancher Candy Coral

I saw this done on Cake boss with some fancy special candy sugar. I decided to experiment with Jolly Ranchers and was very pleased with the result. These I made for my sons sponge bob cake, stay tuned for the end result in a few days!

Ingredients:
Various colored of jolly rancher candies (about 5-6 per piece of coral)
Ice - small chunks is best so if your using cubes you need to smash them up a bit. 

Materials:
tall mason jar or a glass would also work
piece of parchment or wax paper the size of your jar
1-2 small pots
rubber spatula


Directions:
Sort candies, peel wrappers off, and place in small pot. I would have two because it takes a bit to soak one color out.

 

On med-low (on my stove I started at 4) start to heat your candies. While they are heating line your jar with paper and fill it up to the top with loosely packed ice.

Once candy has just started to melt and bubble a bit turn it down to low setting. It burns very easy so you want to watch it closely at this point.

Stir with rubber spatula until all candy is melted and it is runny.

 

Now quickly because it hardens very fast, pour over top your ice. You want to go sort of back and forth a bit to get a good base for it to sit on. Making sure you have no gaps and nice and solid on what will be the bottom.

Now set it aside, place the pot in the sink with hot water to melt out the unused candy. Run your spatula under cold water and the candy will come right off.


Start on your next color as this one is setting.

Once it is cool to the touch on the top and feels hard you can gently turn it over onto a plate. The ice should seperate but if it "grew" around a piece just run it under tepid water for a minute and it should come out, don't try to pry it out or you will break your coral.

 Set your coral aside to dry on parchment and admire your hard work LOL so pretty!

Dill and lemon baked salmon

I usually do this one on the BBQ but the day I made this it snowed so we did it in the oven.

Ingredients:

One whole salmon  - you can remove the head or leave it on I like food that is not looking at me
1-2 lemons sliced about 1/4 inch thick
1 sliced onion
6 or so cloves of garlic
Large bunch of fresh dill - you could use dry if you wanted

Directions:

Clean salmon inside and out, remove head and tail if preferred.
On top of a sheet of foil larger then your fish, place one layer of lemons, onion, dill, and garlic.

Lay fish on top
Inside fish place another layer of lemon, onion, dill and garlic

 

Repeat on the top then place a layer of foil and roll edges to make a nice package

Cook 45 minutes in a 375 oven or until salmon is cooked through and flakes easily.

To serve I find the easiest method is to slice down the backbone but not too deep so you cut the bones off, then across to make fillet sized piece, slide off the spine. Run your finger lightly over it to make sure you didn't miss any small pin bones but most should stay with the spine